The present invention relates generally to home entertainment and, more particularly, to a system and method for enabling a remote control to automatically and dynamically set-up a V-chip in a consumer appliance.
As described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,216,228 to Chapman et al., the US Telecommunications Act of 1996 set forth initiatives for enabling parental control over what is presented via television screens—effectively requiring inclusion of a viewing controller computer chip or “V-chip” within new consumer appliances. The V-chip functions to block presentation of certain content on the basis of a rating system. The ratings that the FCC has defined are:                TV-Y—zero violence or sexual content—all children can watch;        TV-Y7—for children 7 and over;        TV-G—for general audiences—no sex, violence or inappropriate language;        TV-PG—Parental guidance suggested;        TV-14—Suitable only for persons over 14—some sex or violence; and        TV-MA—Suitable only for mature audiences—may contain graphic violence or sexual situations.The industry also agreed to apply the ratings to various categories of content that appear in programs. Thus, the letters “V,” “S,” “L,” and “D” were added to indicate the presence of violence, sex, language, and suggestive dialogue, respectively. The letters “FV” (indicating “fantasy violence”) were added to the children's ratings to indicate the presence of “more intense” violence in children's programs. These TV Parental Guidelines went into effect in October of 1997.        
Broadcasters and other providers of content in the U.S. have been encouraged to transmit or record content which includes this rating information for detection by the V-chip and consumer appliance manufacturers are required to implement the necessary electronics to respond to this information. When installed on a consumer appliance such as, for example, a television, video game console, or the like, the V-chip is intended to be manually set-up to prevent the display of certain types of content. For example, a parent can program the V-chip with a rating and the TV will block all shows having content above that rating. So if a parent programs in the TV-Y7 rating, the TV will let through shows rated at TV-Y and TV-Y7 but will block all other shows. Further information regarding the details of V-chip operation may be seen in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,554,584 and 5,828,402, which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
While this legislation has increased the attention given to censorship and television viewing controls, it has not resulted in any significant technological advances in the V-chip set-up process. For example, one particular problem experienced by families, especially families with younger children, is that once the V-chip is manually set-up to filter content having an identified rating, any adult wishing to experience content having a higher rating is required to enter a password to gain access to and unlock the V-chip parental control settings. To the frustration of adults, this process is time consuming and complex as it often requires stepping through multiple screens in a consumer appliance set-up menu to find, access and then set the parameters for the V-chip. To further compound the frustration, this time consuming and complex process must be repeated after viewing the content to again set-up the V-chip to prevent the child from having access to all types of content.
For use in interacting with consumer appliance set-up menus, it is known in the art to provide remote controls. It is further known to provide remote controls with protocol or encoding schemes which include a data field to identify which one of several users is currently transmitting commands to a consumer appliance. Examples of such protocols include SolutioNet's TWIRP, Philip's RC-MM, and Cable & Wireless' Two Way TV. Other protocols such as NEC, Kaseikyo, and Philips RC-5 may also be easily adapted for this purpose by simply assigning a new significance to one or more of the data bits transmitted. Still further, U.S. Pat. No. 5,005,084 to Skinner describes another protocol to support user identification. While these protocols or encoding schemes allow individual users to be identified to consumer appliances, they have not been advantageously used in connection with V-chip technology. Therefore, the failure to contemplate using protocols and encoding schemes to identify users to a V-chip has left the process of setting a V-chip the frustrating, repetitive, manual, menu-driven process described above.